


Oh my little star sweeper

by wanderlustlover



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Community: milliways_bar, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-01
Updated: 2012-11-01
Packaged: 2017-11-17 12:32:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/551609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustlover/pseuds/wanderlustlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>She knows this song. She has known it as long as she has known breath and life. It is her own, and it is her mothers.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh my little star sweeper

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, reader. In case you haven't seen the privso before this is "A Milliways Fic." 
> 
> Which means it's involved with this lovely game [**Here**](milliways-bar.dreamwidth.org). Or nod tips toward points of Milliways itself. This fic is part of of long standing tradition titled "Conversations With Dead People" which happens every October 31st, in which the characters interact with someone they lost, usually in a dream. 
> 
> This year I decided to write Bitty!Snow and her mother, somewhere between the loss her mother and The Stable Boy (1.18).

_I am your mother_  
 _And I'm so glad you're here_  
 _You have a father_  
 _Who loves you, oh so dear_

 

She knows this song. She has known it as long as she has known breath and life. It is her own, and it is her mothers. Same as the voice which sings it softly, is her mother's voice. Warmly soft and always peaceful, setting off a spangled set of bright fireworks in her muzzy head and her quiet heart.

There is nothing like these words, nothing like this voice, nothing like the absolutely ordinary nights that are filled with them. Not of the balls, or plays, or dinners, or the palaces. This is her very most favorite.

 

_We call you baby_  
 _'Cause we don't know how to say_  
 _That you are love_  
 _That's come to live_  
 _At our house today_

 

She could no more forget these words were written on the very fabric of her heart than she could forget the stars she courtesies goodnight to as her father laughs his deep belly chuckle of merry amusement before catching her up in his arms, and tucking her into her new big girl bed of the heaviest blankets and the thinnest sheets, of which she must learn to care for.

They are the sun and the moon of her sky, they dictate her walk through this great Enchanted Forest. There is no darkness in the sky, in her way, when she hears these words, like every holy candle they brighten her heart, and surround her in down. She knows them as well as she know - oh, yes - the fingers that start at her temple, brushing down the shell of her ear and her back, following her curls.

 

_La, la, loo_  
 _La, la, loo_  
 _Oh my little star sweeper_  
 _I'll sweep the stardust for you_

 

Of course. She isn't in her bed. She must have fallen asleep. She's here, laying with her head in her mother's lap. Like always. Sleep filling up her eyes the way the great waters and proud trees fill the horizon. The safest place in all the realms. Where no ogre or wolf would dare find her. Where if she is asleep, she will be rolled up, like a small snowy mouse and taken to her swaying bed. But if she can blink and be awake, she might yet get sung to all over again. Her mother smiling, and tapping her nose, before stroking her hair through it all over again.

“Are you sleeping, Snow?” The voice broke in, echoing, soft as a birds' wing.

 

_La, la, loo,_  
 _La, la, loo_  
 _Little soft, fluffy sleeper_  
 _Here comes a pink cloud for you_

 

Snow rubbed her cheek on her mother's skirt, warm and silken under her skin. Trying to rouse her eyelids, but they felt like they had grown heavier than even the kitchen doors and the brick walls combined.

She mumbled, one hand moving from the skirt to rub at her eyes. "'M not sleepy. Just once more, please?"

“You must listen close, for our time is short, little one.” Her Mother continued, soft and even. With only that smallest edge of pressure. Like when she left her shoes in the grand hall. Or the guests had stayed too long. “There is much coming for you, and you must be strong.”

 

_La, la, loo_  
 _La, la, loo_  
 _Little wandering angel_  
 _Fold up your wings_  
 _Close your eyes_

 

"I can be brave," Snow said through a yawn, her fingers tightening against her Mother's knee. Like the heroes in all the stories they read her, and in all the stories that traveled to her.

“I know you can.” There was a soft laugh as the fingers continued to card her curls so very delicately. “But you must carry so much more with you than that. Trust, and Friendship, to light the darkest of places. Duty and Honor, when they might be forgotten. Honesty and Forgiveness, when it might be most needed and least expected."

“And always, always, Snow.” The fingers moved from her curls to stroke her cheek, so very slowly, as though to make it last. “You will always have the two things that nothing can ever truly take from you, or be stood against: Hope and Love.”

 

_La, la, loo_  
 _La, la, loo_  
 _And may love be your keeper_

 

"I love you, Mother," Snow said, fiercely, even as it was a whisper into a winter's gale. Struggling, but unable to open her eyes, as though she was falling. Slowly, further and further away. Like the fireflies of evening, and the stars that slept at the call of dawn. Something was changing, and she could not wake herself to change it.

Felt it settling deep in her stomach. Deep and known. Like a promise, a spell, a choice, that could not be undone. That could not be unwished even when wished every night for as long as eyes could stay open on the second star to the right, as far until sleep might claim you.

But it didn't trouble her Mother, at all. No, it didn't seem it. She could feel the gentle brush of her mother lips so close to her ears, the breath on her skin, the warmth that came with her voice. With her rich, deep, true, “Do not fret, my little star keeper. You will always be loved. So very dearly and deeply loved.”

 

___La, la, loo_  
 _La, la, loo_  
 _La, la, loo_  



End file.
